Wellington, July 16 NZPA - A report saying the Corrections Department should no longer be responsible for prison healthcare has been hailed by an inmates' rights lobbyist as an important and significant contribution to health policy.

A National Health Committee report into improving prisoner health said it would be better if the health sector was responsible for their care, while Corrections concentrated on incarceration.

Families of many prisoners were under financial and relationship stress even before an arrest, and health problems only made matters worse, the report said.

The most serious and recidivist offenders tended to have more health and social problems, and if their problems were not properly seen to "their influence on health and offending tends to accumulate", committee chairwoman Pauline Barnett said.

There was "no shortage" of evidence to demonstrate there were ways to increase investment in health and addiction treatment that would improve health outcomes and reduce offending, she said.

"The state has a responsibility to care for the health of those it incarcerates. From our consultations and the evidence we have compiled it is clear considerable benefits can be gained by developing closer ties between prison health services and the health sector."

Rethinking Crime and Punishment director Kim Workman said the report described how unwell prisoners were, and the inadequacy of the current response to their health woes.

Based on the overseas experience, reintegration and rehabilitation of inmates would improve if responsibility for their healthcare was transferred out of Corrections, he said.

The mindset needed to change from one preoccupied with managing behavioural risk, to a primary concern with the therapeutic and clinical needs of prisoners, and their families, many of whom were poor and hard-to-reach, he said.

"There is an opportunity, with the provision of comprehensive healthcare, to link back into those communities," he said.

Countries which had transferred responsibility for prisoner healthcare back to the health sector had made "significant advancement in promoting health prisoners, and contributed to their successful reintegration and rehabilitation".

Corrections' role of ensuring community safety through custody and containment was inconsistent with the demands of integrated primary health care, the report said.

The committee recommended:

* "significant" additional investment in services so the health of prisoners, their families and whanau, and the wider community could be improved;

* improvements to protect against the negative effects of incarceration and improve health delivery;

* Government consider the "strong case" for transferring prison health care to the health sector.

Corrections Minister Judith Collins and Health Minister Tony Ryall thanked the committee for its report and said they would be asking their departments for formal advice on it.

A 2005 Prisoner Health Survey found 67 percent of responding prisoners smoked daily; 46 percent had tooth or mouth discomfort; 64 percent had had at least one head injury; 89 percent had a lifetime prevalence of substance abuse; while 10 percent of men in prison reported having heart disease.